This invention relates to a support for a flexible hose, and more particularly to a support for a flexible hose that extends from a recreational vehicle to a waste hook-up in a trailer park.
Many recreational vehicles such as motorized homes, trailers and campers are equipped with toilets, showers, sinks and the like that have waste materials as a by-product of their use. These waste materials are either temporarily stored in a tank or other receptacle for later removal or directly discharged into a sewage or other waste system at the trailer park. In either situation, the waste material is routed via a flexible hose from an exterior outlet on the the outside of the recreational vehicle to a hook-up to the trailer park's waste system. Such hook-ups are generally located at or near the ground.
Inasmuch as the flexible hose rests on the ground as it extends from the exterior outlet to the waste system hook up, it follows the contour of the terrain between those two points. Often, the terrain does not provide a gradually sloping path, with the result that peaks and valleys are formed in the flexible hose in which reservoirs of waste materials gather. The gathering of waste materials creates potential problems with the flow of other waste materials through the hose, makes the flexible drainage hose difficult to clean out and often results in complete stoppage of the hose. Furthermore, the reservoirs are unhealthy in that they provide a breeding ground for harmful bacteria and insects.
Supports of different types that provide a gradually sloping path have been suggested in the past, but they all have significant drawbacks. For instance, the supports disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,809,348 and 3,819,137 both require that a significant number of different components be assembled before the support can be used. And those supports suggested by U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,288,406 and 4,403,758 require appreciable amounts of storage space when not in use.
Another significant drawback encountered in the prior disclosures is the large amount of time required to set up and take down the support. The previously disclosed supports generally require time consuming assembly before they can be arranged to support the flexible hose or require that a plurality of individual support units be arranged along the ground in order to provide sufficient drainage, an exercise that often results in a trial and error procedure before acceptable drainage is achieved. These tasks are time consuming and must be performed when a recreational vehicle first arrives at a trailer park and when it leaves, thereby significantly detracting from the enjoyment and utility of the recreational vehicle.